Hiking

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Piecing Together Trails at Pedernales Falls State Park

    A late blooming Castilleja indivisa I think this is Sorghastrum nutans, yellow Indian grass. The end of September marked our first camping trip of the season. We drove out to Pedernales Falls State Park, somewhere we hadn’t been since the spring of 2016. Forest was only 1.5 at the time and definitely a little more difficult to deal with camping but this time around he was much easier and definitely more fun! We didn’t end up doing as much as hiking as I envisioned we would this time around and instead we spent more time at the river and hanging out at the campsite, too. But when we did hike,…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Evening Ramble at Kleb Woods

    One thing that was been hard for me to adjust to over the last three years since Forest was born was not being out and about in the evenings. Where our house is located, it makes driving anywhere a bit of a chore, about 20 minutes into town and then further for just about anything else, and having a newborn, then older baby, and then toddler, made going out after dinner or doing anything else not worth it. Before Forest was born Chris and I had a standing dinner night out during the week, and we attempted to keep that up during my maternity leave but it became clear evenings…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Thoughts

    A Golden Evening

    I find myself longing for hikes and camping these days. Most everyone else not in the humid south is out enjoying hikes and adventures and here we are sweltering in Texas, hibernating indoors during the afternoons. This is fine, I enjoy letting Forest play upstairs for awhile as I read a book or do some chores. I peer outside the windows at the garden or pond, often falling into a daydream. It looks enticing to get out there but the heat has a way of making us cranky. I’ve actually been enjoying getting a run in at lunch twice a week with the searing sun beating down—the only thing I…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Lake Explorations at Brazos Bend State Park

    As I mentioned in last week’s post about Brazos Bend State Park, there are plenty of alligators at this park to oogle at. Elm Lake and 40-acre Lake would be the primary places to see alligators but the smaller lakes host alligators, too. Alligator gar Chris spotted this quickly on one of the little docks on Elm Lake. Thalia dealbata Of course there was some fishing time put in on 40-acre Lake! Yellow-crowned night heron Yellow bladderwort Yellow and purple bladderwort Dragonflies were very active in the wetlands. I really need to get a dragonfly identification book. I am awful at telling the difference between anhingas and cormorants, especially from…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    On the Trails at Brazos Bend State Park

    Now that we’ve entered the non-camping zone of summer, I am now looking back at our second to last camping trip of the season. In early May we went to Brazos Bend State Park; it was warming up but it wasn’t unbearable quite yet. Thanks to the shady campsite we had, we were able to stay a little cool in the middle of the day by lounging in the tent. Our last camping trip, to the LCRA Matagorda Nature Park was the opposite of that—hot, sticky, no shade. At Brazos Bend there really is a plethora of things to do and it is probably one of the more popular parks…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Pineywoods Nature Trail | Lake Livingston State Park

    Thicket of blackberries Prunella vulgaris Salvia lyrata Yaupon flowers Prairie plantain, Arnoglossum plantagineum Looking at a lizard. Five lined skink A Vaccinium in bloom. Wild onion flowers The Pineywoods Nature Trail turned out to be a fascinating trail for us to hike and one that was perfectly suited for Forest to explore on foot. We went through the loop twice over the weekend we were camping and each time saw new things. Forest really enjoyed being able to explore on his own and funnily enough he remembered some key points about where we’d visited on the first round, such as where exactly we had found a green anole on the…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Trinity Trace Trail | Lake Livingston State Park

    The Trinity Trace Trail meanders from the Pin Oak camping loop on the north end of the park down to the south end of the park, beyond the Hercules Club camping loop. We hiked only on the portion that began between the Piney Shores and Yaupon loops, heading south. I had been on this section before with Keely but I couldn’t remember everything about the loop. In particular, I’d forgotten about the bridge being out and the inability to complete the loop on the southern end. On our way out, behind the Hercules Club camping loop we passed a group of scouts heading north, appearing to go pick up trash.…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Forest’s First Backpacking Trip | Part I

    *Photo heavy post! Write-up at the end! It’s also long!* Prep and Planning I think we picked the perfect weekend for introducing Forest to backpacking. It wasn’t our longest hike with him ever but we also didn’t want to be too far from the car should we need to hoof it back if something went awry. The weekend before I had seen the 10 day forecast and thought it looked like a promising one for a backpacking trip. The rest of our weekends through April and early May are pretty busy with commitments and Chris heading out of town for work, so unless we planned on doing this when the…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    Spring Camping at Huntsville State Park

    We finally managed to get out for a camping excursion after several months of dormancy in that department. Busy schedules and chilly weather left us without a camping trip on the schedule for December and January and while February warmed up nicely Chris ended up out of town for work for several weekends. We’re sticking closer to this side of Texas for our spring camping trips and we kicked the season off with a trip up to Huntsville State Park. While we’ve hiked here many times, Chris and I have only camped here here once, back in February of 2012. I like that this park is so convenient, only an…

  • Hiking,  Outdoors

    A little botany at Huntsville State Park

    A week ago Sunday, before lunch, we took off for a morning hike. We were cantering down the Chinquapin trail, perhaps a quarter or half mile from the trailhead, when we saw an older gentleman pop up out of the shrubs and back onto the trail. At first I thought we’d interrupted his tree watering moment but he had just stood up from sniffing a flower. The flower in question was lilac and situated just a few feet off trail; he said it was extremely fragrant so we stopped and sniffed too. In chatting with the man we came to find out he was a frequent visitor to the park…